Unwrapping Bug Suppose weve got two periodic cosine gratings, T1 and T2 formulated below: [ [ ( ( )] )] (1) (2)

As it can be seen, the second grating is shifted in propagation direction by some shift amount s. We can find arguments insides of cosines, say and , by using the method of phase shifting. After that, the amount of shift s can be obtained this way: (3) (4) Now suppose there is some angle between the lines of the two gratings and the standard Cartesian coordinate axis and the second one is still shifted the same amount in propagation direction, so that T1 and T2 are reformulated below: [ ( )] (5)

)]

(6)

So by maintaining phase shift method again: (7) (8) This still indicates the same result. As you know, the phase map gain by phase shifting method, is made of values that all exist between and , so before getting it to work, we need to unwrap the phase map. This is where the error occurs. For instance, take two gratings with pitch of 90, angle of 0 that the relative shift is set to be 20, the shift calculated by (8) is the same and there is no problem. But for the same gratings with a shift set to be 30, the amount of calculated shift is to be -15! (7) (8)

The solution procedure by Matlab is shown in the following figures: